Elon Musk has said UK MPs “will be summoned to the United States of America to explain their censorship and threats to American citizens” in a new escalation of tensions between the world’s richest man and the Labor Party.
Musk, who has been at Donald Trump’s side since his re-election as US president, was responding to a Guardian report on Wednesday that the House of Commons science and technology select committee would call him to testify in the new year in his investigation into the spread of harmful content on social networks after the August riots.
Committee chair Chi Onwurah, a Labor MP, said she wanted to see how Musk, owner of social media platform
X hosts accounts from figures such as Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate, who were accused of inciting people to join Islamophobic protests.
Musk, who has more than 205 million followers on X, responded by saying that the parliamentarians would be summoned to the United States. He had previously complained that prison sentences handed down to people who fueled the riots in . people for social media posts.”
He has branded the British Prime Minister a “two-tier Kier”, claiming that not all communities were equally protected by police in the UK, while Jess Philips, a government minister, has called X “a place of misery”.
Musk weighed in on changes to the inheritance tax on farms, saying Monday that “Britain is going completely Stalinist.” Peter Mandelson, who is emerging as the next UK ambassador to Washington, then called for an end to the “dispute” between Musk and the UK government, calling it “a kind of technological, industrial and commercial phenomenon” with which the UK must build bridges.
In an interview with The Guardian on Thursday, Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science and Technology, denied there was a dispute and called Musk “an innovator of extraordinary proportions, the likes of which our planet, our humanity, rarely sees.” ”. .
He said he was willing to have “a frank conversation where we disagree, but also strive to find common ground.”
However, Kyle added: “The way he has characterized British society is wrong. I’d love to talk to him about how, with his vision of free speech, we can keep people safe. “Freedom of expression, in my opinion, does not include the right to sow disinformation or hate to a degree that harms individuals or communities… as happened in August and that led to arrests because it was criminal activity.”
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Kyle said he was “in contact with X” and had had “many conversations with them about the nature of free speech and how it should be applied.” He also said that he “had no plans to leave X, simply because I very much respect the audience that is there and that I want to communicate with.”
It was not immediately clear what “threats to American citizens” Musk was referring to in his call for British MPs to be summoned to Washington, but one of his US-based online followers claimed, without providing evidence, that he was called in by the British police and threatened with charges if he did not eliminate certain positions during the riots.
Another follower described the MPs’ desire to call Musk to testify as a trap, saying: “They will stop him at the border, demand to see the contents of his phone, and when he refuses, they will charge him under anti-terrorism laws. “
When asked about Musk’s response, Onwurah said: “X is one of the most relevant social media platforms for our research. We want to hear from senior company officials so we can collect the best evidence possible. And Mr. Musk is the most senior representative of X, with strong opinions on disinformation and freedom of expression, an important issue in itself.”
Musk has begun calling himself “first friend” in relation to the president-elect and has been tasked with reforming the efficiency of the American government. It looks like he will have considerable influence on the regulation of artificial intelligence, especially considering that he owns an AI startup, xAI, which has attracted billions of dollars in investments from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and private equity giants from Silicon Valley.